Slabs for Kids

Just to throw out some ideas for teachers looking for ideas. I was looking through a few old pots the other day and came across a couple of slab construction demo pieces.

The first of these was a re-visitation from my college years and a project my ceramics prof presented. He called it the "poison goblet". His version was to create a wet slab, decorate it, roll it into a rough tube, seal the seam and squeeze the center into a neck, then refine. When I presented it to the students in my beginning classes it was a little more structured. First they had to use three of the major decoration techniques I had taught them: stamping, incising, added on clay, or piercing. Secondly they had to add some form of organic or inorganic form to the pot after refinement of the goblet itself. My example was as shown

I usually followed up with some form of leather hard project in slabs so that they could see both ends of the spectrum, soft and leather hard construction. One of these projects was to create an incense or candle box of fixed dimensions. It had to have pierced areas for the light/smoke to come through, and it had to have one other form of surface decoration again using one of the techniques taught. The edges has to be defined, and the form had to have a way to get the candle/incense in and out easily. My simple example is shown below.

Great idea with a lot of possibilities. Just wondering- this is with wet clay, so if you are doing it with kids do you limit the slab/goblet size so the whole thing doesn't collapse on them- I can just see some kids making a really skinny stem and the whole thing being top heavy.
Morah

Great idea with a lot of possibilities. Just wondering- this is with wet clay, so if you are doing it with kids do you limit the slab/goblet size so the whole thing doesn't collapse on them- I can just see some kids making a really skinny stem and the whole thing being top heavy.Morah

Easy to limit the size for age groups, pre weigh balls of clay the size that you think they should use to make appropriate sized slabs. I have done this with kids all the way from 8-to adult. 8 year olds would usually get about a 2 lb ball of clay and sticks of 3/8". A demonstration of how to get an appropriate slab shape for the "poison goblet" was done first, along with decoration techniques. This would allow me to size the project larger as the kids were older.

I like the idea of the "poison goblet" it might inspire the kids to do some more decoration on it to create "magic" atmosphere. ;)src="http://ceramicartsda...ault/wink.gif">
I'd like to try this one with the children of my schoolgroup.

In the school group (11/12 year old to 14/15 year old children) I have mostly the problem of very unmotivated kids because they just want to "chill" instead of being in school in the afternoon.
It is a "working group" without marks, but obligatory to attend. :blink:src="http://ceramicartsda...ult/blink.gif">

Do you have some pictures of how the students created their goblets? Just to get an idea how this project turned out "in reality"?

Sorry, I don't seem to have any of these pics on file. I will check the hard drive on an older computer as I am loading it into one I just built. Maybe some of these are on there. I did these in the 90's. Later I used them with 10-14 yr olds in summer. The summer class was 5 days exactly, four projects. The 5th day they went home with all projects glazed. No time to photograph pieces when I unloaded the kiln, and sent them on their way.

4 projects in 5 days, Pres?!?!?! You must be some sort of miracle worker. How did you get them dry so quickly? I would love to hear what your other 3 projects were.Morah

We started the week with a slab tray on this I taught them to do 4 forms of decoration, roll out a slab, use a template, set up a slump mold(push-pinned sheet to a box) and add feet. The templates were some matt board shapes I had designed, but the large slabs that they made allowed them to pick a decorative area for the smaller sushi sized platter. Second project started the same day with mixed mat board templates(rectangle measurements went together) made to create a shape variety of boxes. The slab was already decorated and they had to pick areas that would match up, All this the first day-assembly for the box day 2. 3rd project was using wet slabs in a bisque bowl. I had thrown 2 dozen of different sizes to use in the regular classes for hump and slump molds. These had rounded bottoms so both worked. We also introduced the potters wheel and using a lump of clay stuck to head, used tools to carve and put a hole in the center for foot rings-time wise not enough for throwing of any sort, but foot rings turned out most times, Last project was the poison goblet same day-usually finishing up day 3.

So what was the magic? I had two down draft tables that had been purchased to handle dust/fumes in a shop/industrial area. These were purchased in a block for all over the district shops-bright idea of someone in admin. The special price had two left over-I got them by chance. . . he he he. Anyway in 30-60 minutes they would dry an entire day of work. I would have them in the kiln by 1pm, be unloading a cone 06 bisque in the morning. Fourth day we glazed, fifth day we had a critique, and everyone got 30-60 minutes on the potters wheel-no keepers, which I told them upfront.